


Through Someone Else's Eyes

by OceanMelon



Category: Epic (2013)
Genre: F/M, Many of them, OCs - Freeform, Post-Canon, Post-Movie, no real plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 15:05:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6615223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanMelon/pseuds/OceanMelon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set a few years after the end of the movie, MK's gone off to college only to stumble across a rather annoying obstacle.</p><p>"You're right," agrees Chlöe. "You shouldn't have to do this. And maybe, in ten years or so, no girl will ever be forced into this act again but the world is still stupid for the moment, MK, and guys are still dicks."</p><p>Nod and MK's relationship, as viewed through the eyes of two OCs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chlöe

**Author's Note:**

> The story where Ocean suddenly remembers that she knows absolutely nothing about American English.

“They’re my brother’s,” Chlöe supplies to MK’s worried look as she carries an armload of old clothes into the room.

“You know he’s tiny, right?” MK holds up her thumb and forefinger to show just how small she means. “Like, teeny-tiny.”

Chlöe rolls her eyes and drops her brother’s clothes onto MK’s disgustingly pink bed.

“You don’t say?” she asks sarcastically. “You’ve only told me three quadrillion times. I don’t know how I never picked up on it.”

MK gives her a shove and mutters, “be serious,” but the other girl doesn’t hear it.

“He said he could become big, right? The queen will do it. Problem solved.”

“And what am I supposed to call him?” MK suddenly blurts out, running her hands through her hair anxiously until her bangs stick bolt upright in ginger spikes.

“Just call him Nod.” Chlöe shrugs.

“It’s not even a human name!” MK shrieks, the panic truly setting in now.

Chlöe picks up on the step over a certain line instantly and kneels in front of her friend, taking MK firmly by the shoulders.

“Relax, Em. Everything will be fine. Just breathe. All you’re doing is taking him on a little trip. A vacation. Forget about everything else. Relax. Breathe. You’re okay. He’s okay. Everything’s fine.” She goes on until MK’s finally stopped shaking.

Chlöe had learned about Nod fairly quickly. She’d only been rooming with Mary Katherine Radcliffe for a week before she noticed the near-constant Skype calls her roommate seemed to have. It didn’t take her much longer to score an introduction to the caller.

She’d just come back from a coffee date with her girlfriend earlier than MK had expected and caught the two of them off guard.

MK, usually tucked in a corner during the mysterious calls, was sprawled out on the ground. She lay on her back with her feet propped up on her bed, head turned to the side to talk (and laugh) into her laptop that sat beside her.

The screen was facing the door.

Chlöe caught a flash of green and a faint (male) voice crying “MK?” before her roommate slammed the screen shut and turned to her, face drained with horror.

“How long were you there?” MK asked.

Chlöe shrugged, curious to see if the classic line would work. “Long enough.”

It did and MK gave an almighty sigh, shoulders hunching forward and fear practically written over her face in Sharpie.

“You gotta promise not to faint,” she said.

“Scouts’ honour,” Chlöe replied solemnly, hand over heart.

MK opened her laptop again almost timidly and hammered in her password.

The screen was green again, looking out over a forest.

MK took another shaky breath. “Nod?” she said. “Nod, you still there?”

Silence.

“He might have left already,” MK warned Chlöe, who had come to sit beside her on the floor.

Suddenly the screen was filled with eye. The two girls jumped back. The eye drew back to reveal a young man in his late teens -- early twenties at the latest -- with skin just the brown side of golden, hazel eyes, freckles and a head of thick, chestnut colored hair.

“Oh, MK!” said the boy. “I thought I did something to the thing. I was about to go get B-” He froze. “Oh, hi,” he said, looking straight at Chlöe.

“Hi,” Chlöe replied, waving a little.

The boy -- Nod? -- was wearing the weirdest clothes she had ever seen; bright green and metallic somehow. Armor?

“Is that some sort of costume? Like role-play?” Her question was addressed to MK as much as it was to the boy.

The boy looked confused.

MK just looked relieved.

“Yes,” said MK quickly before the boy could say anything. “Nod, this is my college roommate, Chlöe Daniels. Chlöe, this is my… friend from my hometown, Nod.”

Chlöe did think it was odd that MK hadn’t given her Nod’s last name as she’d given him hers but the thought was quickly pushed aside by the telling pause before the word ‘friend’. There was something going on between those two.

Chlöe decided not to push it.

It took her a little longer to realize his size. It was so impossible, it had never even occurred to her as a possibility before. But, one day, when she was chatting to Nod while MK went out to get noodles for the two of them, Mub turned up.

Chlöe did faint then.

He was tiny. Nod was tiny. He had to be because she refused to acknowledge the possibility that there might be a slug that big.

When she came to, MK was back, simultaneously fanning her with a lab manual and arguing with Nod and the slug.

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Nod was saying. “She just saw a slug the size of a Stomper, I’m not surprised she passed out. And you don’t live at the edge of the forest anymore, MK. I couldn’t really just dash over and catch her before she hit the ground.”

“Puh-lease! She’d squash you flat if you tried,” said the slug.

Said the slug? The slug could talk.

“Oh! She’s awake!” it spoke again. “You okay, baby-doll? You hit your head pretty hard.”

“Mub, could you leave us for a moment?” said MK with forced calm. “I’m sure you’re very busy anyway now that Grub can’t help you watch over the pods.”

He argued. She convinced with astounding patience. Eventually, Nod just kicked the slug off the branch they were standing on.

The branch! How had she never noticed that before? Because it was impossible. It had to be.

“You’re just going to have to tell her,” Nod said.

“I can’t do that! You don’t have some sort of mind-erasing magic?” MK asked.

“Leafman, remember? No magic.”

“Fine, I’ll explain. She’s not going to believe me, though. And Ronin’s probably going to kill us both for introducing a ‘serious security risk’.”

Nod grinned. “She’ll have to believe you. Won’t you, Chlöe? After all, I’m standing right here.”

Chlöe managed to shift her face into one of confusion and Nod’s grin faded.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I should go,” he said. “You’re right, Ronin’s gonna chew me out, as is. If I stay longer, he’ll probably have to pull out the ‘many leaves, one tree’ line.”

MK laughed stiffly (not having forgotten what she’d just promised to do) but Chlöe was lost.

“I’ll see you soon?” The tiny man sounded genuinely hopeful.

“See you soon, Nod,” MK replied and the screen went black.

She turned to look at Chlöe still frozen in shock, suddenly understanding why MK had looked so horror-struck that day she’d walked in early.

And then MK explained everything.

An advanced society of tiny people living in the woods behind her dad’s house. Of course.

Chlöe passed out again.

The days passed and reality settled upon her. Nod was two inches tall. MK was not insane. The evidence was mounting up. It wasn't impossible, after all. And, slowly, life moved on for the two roommates as it should.

Until Caleb O'Reilly.

"I shouldn't have to do this," says MK, back at home at her dad's house on her too-small bed, a pile of Chlöe's brother's old clothes beside her.

"No, you shouldn't," Chlöe agrees, "and maybe, in ten years or so, no girl will ever be forced into this act again but the world is still stupid for the moment, MK, and guys are still dicks."

MK groans and falls back on the bed.

"What am I supposed to do? Walk through campus holding Nod's hand, hope O'Reilly sees us and leaves me alone forever thereafter? This is so stupid."

"Well, what was your other plan again?" Chlöe raises an eyebrow, knowing full well what the answer will be.

"Punch him in the face," MK mumbles.

"And get yourself suspended. Don't you have a paper due soon?"

"I'm being harassed! _He_ should be the one getting suspended!"

"Oh, please," says Chlöe. "You know they'll just say he's being 'persistent' and let him off with a warning. That's not the way the world works."

"Well, it should!"

Chlöe just looks at her.

"Yeah, I know," says MK, "in ten years or so..."

"We'll get there," says Chlöe. "In the meantime, you have to get this creep off your back."

MK sits up. "I just don't like feeling like I'm asking Nod to come and save me."

"Strong independent woman, and all that," suggests Chlöe.

MK just hums in agreement.

Chlöe flops onto the pink comforter beside her friend.

"Remind me again who's asking him to do this?" she says.

"Me," MK replies miserably.

"Exactly. He's just fulfilling a role you have for him. You're still in control. Think of him like a toothbrush, just cleaning away Caleb O'Reilly at your command."

"But Nod _isn't_ a toothbrush! I can't think of him as one. I wouldn't let myself. It's... Well, it's rude! He's alive! He has feelings too!"

"Even better," says Chlöe. "He's a toothbrush that cares if you get gingivitis or not. Besides, it's not all an act, right? I mean, you guys are dating, aren't you?"

"Yes -- No? I don't know..." MK seems confused and stands up to pace around the room. "We were only ever the same size for, like, half a day and..." she gestures down at her body, "it can't really go anywhere now we're like this. I mean, he's not even human! Or maybe I should say I'm not even Jinn because they're both equally huge obstacles!" She drops her face into her hands. "It's complicated. I don't know, Chlö."

"But you like him, don't you?" Chlöe teases.

MK freezes, face still buried in palms.

"You do," insists Chlöe. "Then there's no problem."

Her roommate unfreezes with a groan. "It's not that simple, Chlöe," she says, flopping back onto the bed beside her. "No one is allowed to know. No one can ever know about the Jinn. Don't you realize what would happen to them if humans did?"

"But you told me?"

"That was different. For starters, I thought you'd already seen. Secondly... I trusted you," MK finishes sheepishly.

"You'd known me, like, a week."

"Still..." MK insists.

Chlöe stands and walks to the window to peek through the blinds and down into the backyard. She had the feeling that wasn't the real second reason MK had let the secret slip but, once again, she didn't push it.

A flash of metallic green and Chlöe's eyes go to the edge of the woods.

Nod stumbles on a root and goes crashing to the ground, face first into the grass of MK's backyard.

"Looks like your boy's here, whatever the case. And he's all grown up, too, walking on legs too big for him," Chlöe says.

MK is on her feet in a second, face pressed to the glass and blinds pulled aside. But she doesn't stay there. She remains just long enough to see Nod pull his face from the grass and spit out a mouthful of leaves before she's gone.

Chlöe hears her go. Stomping down the stairs, footfalls echoing over ancient hardwood floors, the slam of a door. Then she appears in the yard just as Nod has managed to find his feet. She flings herself at him and he's lost them again, flying backwards into the woods.

Chlöe smiles.

Those two will be just fine.


	2. Caleb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing him and even I want to punch Caleb in the face...

“Would you stop itching?” MK asks as Nod pulls on the collar of Chlöe’s brother’s old shirt for the nth time. “I thought you’d itched yourself all out on the train.”

Truth be told, MK hadn’t been paying much attention to anything around her on the train from the tiny town where her dad lived, back to campus. She’d been too worried that, somehow, Nod would just… stop. Like he’d hit a brick wall, or something. After all, he was Jinn -- a spirit of the forest. Maybe he was tied to the forest like a poltergeist. Maybe he couldn’t actually,  _ physically _ , leave there. So, MK had just sat, twisting and untwisting her fingers in her lap, waiting for the invisible wall to appear.

But it never did, thank goodness.

“I can’t help it,” Nod complains. “You Stompers wear the weirdest clothes… They’re so itchy!”

Chlöe hasn’t said anything since they’d left MK’s dad’s place. She’s just switching between staring at Nod, MK, studiously not looking at anything, and then back to Nod again.

She has to keep reminding herself that he’s usually two inches tall. Sure he sometimes uses odd words like ‘Stomper’ but, in every other way, it had just become impossible again that Nod was anything other than human.

“Nod, I hate to break it to you, but we’re not the weird ones. You’re the one who usually goes running around in nothing other than leaves like you’re in the Garden of Eden. We couldn’t exactly have you walking through town in that. It would attract too much attention. You’re lucky Chlöe even had a brother to take clothes from. We might have had to buy them, otherwise,” says MK.

“Garden of Eden?” says Nod and MK rolls her eyes.

“Oh, right. No Christianity… Don’t worry about it, then.”

Caleb O’Reilly watches the exchange from beyond earshot. He doesn’t like it. Who is this guy with a face like a Hemsworth brother and the ability to make Mary Katherine Radcliffe laugh like it was nothing at all?

He watches as that blonde friend of MK’s waves goodbye to split off from their small group into the cafeteria. She’s a man-hater, that one. Caleb has never quite understood why she glared at him every time he talked to MK. Isn’t he a decent guy? He’s not bad looking and he’d never touch MK without her permission. He’s loyal and hardworking… What gave that snobby blonde girl the right to glare? She must just be one of those bitchy girls who irreconcilably hate men. Maybe she was just upset that no guy has ever been interested in  _ her _ . Either that, or she’s a lesbian. And everyone knows how  _ they  _ feel about men.

MK hugs her friend goodbye and then… and then that boy takes her hand in his and they walk away.

He just held her hand. Like it was nothing!

MK is always beautiful -- like one of the china dolls Caleb’s grandmother keeps on the highest shelf in her kitchen -- with her big green eyes and the lashes that surrounded them, drawing in anyone who might look her way until they had fallen under MK’s spell. Her porcelain-pale skin, somehow unblemished by the sun even after almost twenty years on Earth, and vibrant red hair. Her smile that gave away nothing but secrets and mystery. Her adorable freckles. She’s beautiful. She is always beautiful. But, looking at her again right now, Caleb can’t help feeling like she’s trying a little harder than usual. It’s not that she’s dressed up, he’d seen her in that pink sweater a thousand times, but she’s just dressed more carefully; each colour perfectly complimenting another, not a wrinkled piece of clothing to be seen and was that a  _ necklace  _ he could see hanging from her neck?

Caleb sniffs and runs one hand down his face. Whoever this dick that’s holding her hand is, he means something to MK. Caleb wants to believe he’s her brother but there’s just no resemblance there at all. There’s something strange about the guy’s face. About his nose, maybe. It looks like it had once been more prominent -- maybe Greek-looking -- but now the bridge is flat. It still protrudes from his face but then, instead of rounding at the summit and rolling down the other side, it flattens. It’s more angular than anything Caleb has ever seen before. On anyone else, it might have looked odd but the pretty-boy pulled it off.

Surgery. It had to be. The bastard.

Caleb pushes off the wall he was leaning on and sets out after MK. They have class together later today, maybe he could fake-ask her a question and break up whatever is going on between her and that guy.

The guy sees him first and puts one hand on MK’s shoulder to whisper in her ear. Caleb grinds his teeth. Maybe if he had the money for plastic surgery, it’d be him holding MK’s hand instead.

She turns and smiles at him and it’s like the douche-bag maybe-lover just disappears.

Caleb would do anything for that smile.

“Hey, Mar-- Oh, I mean MK,” says Caleb and MK tries not to cringe.

It was one thing when her dad made the mistake, he’d usually just genuinely forgotten and fallen back on habit. But when Caleb O’Reilly did it, it felt like he was trying to… she doesn’t really know. Like, it’s something between them. Like some pet name only he ever calls her. Like some pet name she’d  _ asked  _ him to call her. It was particularly disturbing when you knew that O’Reilly is the only person MK has not personally told that preferred name to. The only person. Ever.

Still, she forces a smile. “Caleb, hey,” says MK.

O’Reilly makes an obvious glance up at Nod and MK’s smile loses some of its forgery.

“Oh, Caleb,” she says like she’s only just remembered, “this is my boyfriend, Nod. He’s just dropping in from our hometown.”

Nod actually blushes. She makes a mental-note to thank him later.

“Nod, this is Caleb O’Reilly. We take Classic Literature together.” And she was probably the only reason Caleb had managed to scrape through with a pass last semester.

Yup, MK Radcliffe is amazing.

The Hemsworth face forms a smile and Caleb wants to punch him when he notices that bloody dimple in one cheek.

“Hey,” says Nod and Caleb has to restrain himself from actually punching him because that voice is just not fair. How is he supposed to win like this?

“Hey,” replies Caleb, mentally trying to calculate how many hours he’ll have to work to afford a face like that.

He gives up when he realizes he had no idea what the price would even be.

Nod looks at MK for a second and she smiles at him (the bastard doesn’t even know what he has), encouraging his conversation forward with a nod of her head.

“So, Classic Literature…” says Nod. “What’s that like?”

Caleb struggles through a couple of minutes of small talk, just waiting for that invisible time barrier to pass when he can change the subject without it being rude. The worst part is that Nod seems to be as stupid as he is. He hasn’t read any of the books they’re studying that term. And, when Caleb goes back to high school reading lists, he hasn’t read them either.

It’s so unfair. If this guy is just as dumb as Caleb who is only managing to get through college thanks to the brilliant notes of friends, then all he really has going for him is his face. And he’d  _ paid  _ for that.

Maybe if he could just get one good punch in, just enough to add a decent size crinkle in that fucking nose, it would be enough to turn MK’s gaze away. But did he really want that?

It’s the first time he’s ever questioned it. Does he still want MK if she’s really such a shallow bitch?

The answer is ‘no’. He’s going to give up -- no, that’s not true. He’s not giving up, he’s realizing the truth. MK isn’t that perfect doll he’d gazed up at on his grandmother’s shelf since he was a child. In fact, she wasn’t even that pretty. No, she didn’t deserve him. Let her keep fake, handsome, joking, rich enough for plastic surgery, Nod.

They were made for each other.

**Author's Note:**

> It's a bit of a long story as to how I ended up in this fandom...  
> Basically, once I say 'I had to read The Hunger Games for uni' you'll probably see where this is going. It was for a children's lit class. Funny story there, I actually dropped out of it before I even finished the book but whatever. So I read the book and, being the broke uni student I am, couldn't afford the next two so I kind of... illegally watched the movies online... and absolutely fell in love with Josh Hutcherson's amazing acting. I mean, really. He practically carried Catching Fire. And that 'You're still trying to protect me scene' in MJ2? Brilliant. He's amazing. So I did what any normal person does and looked him up on IMDB and he was in that movie I watched on the way to New Zealand a couple of years ago. That one I finished and just sort of went, 'well that was okay' and thought of thereafter as 'that movie with Beyonce in it and the terrible ending'.   
> So, what did I do? Well, I watched it again and... Holy crap the animation? It's... It's just breathtaking. And while I maintain the ending is awful, and it's a bit weird that a romantic subplot could form over half a day and it could probably have done with a couple of extra weeks in post-production to even out all those strange contradictions... I liked it. It was good. Ronin is good, let's leave it at that.   
> So yeah, I came to Epic for Josh Hutcherson but stayed for the animation and Ronin. That's why I'm here. And that's why you have this weird thing with very confusing tense-changes.  
> (For those of you who are wondering why I'm so bad at American English, as mentioned in the beginning notes, I'm from Australia so... yeah. We use normal English over here. Favourite. Colour. Labelling. Realise. Okay, I'll stop.)  
> I hope you enjoyed it all the same. I have no idea if I'll stick around. Probably not, though. Thanks for letting me sneak in here, then, if that's the case.  
> \-- Ocean


End file.
